Null Character

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What Does Null Character Mean?

A null character refers to any character that has a numeric value of zero. It is termed a null character as it doesn’t carry a value and all its bit are set on 0.

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A null character is also known as a null terminator.

Techopedia Explains Null Character

Although a null character is valueless, it has wide implementation in programming languages and applications. A null character is a type of control character and is part of most character sets. Typically, a null character is represented by a "space" or empty data set in applications such as a word processing database and is used for filling empty spaces and padding. In programming languages/context, a null character is represented by the escape sequence , and it marks the end of a character string.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.